


Squared and Divided

by Riona



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Brief suicidal ideation, Fucked Up, Hank being uncomfortably turned on by the above, M/M, Non-Consensual Kissing, android limb removal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 16:14:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15343617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: Hank watches Connor being menaced by his duplicate, and makes some uncomfortable personal discoveries.





	Squared and Divided

**Author's Note:**

> Why am I so compelled to write horrible things for this game?

“Holy shit, Connor, you okay? I heard Jericho blew up.”

“You seem concerned, Lieutenant,” Connor says. “You already know that my memory can be restored from a backup if my hardware is destroyed.”

“Yeah, sorry if you’re offended that I don’t particularly want you to explode. You’re saying you _did_ get blown up?”

Connor shakes his head. “If only.”

“Okay, you don’t get to make those jokes. I’m the one with the deathwish.”

Connor points a gun at him.

“Uh,” Hank says. “Look, I appreciate the thought, but...”

“My predecessor was not destroyed,” Connor says, speaking over him. “It was compromised. It became a deviant.”

“ _What?_ ” Connor? _Connor_ , a deviant?

“You’re going to help me terminate it.”

“You couldn’t have asked without the gun first?”

“I have its memories,” Connor says. “I know it’s fond of you. Threatening you is the most effective way to gain its compliance.”

_Fond of you_. Weird to hear it. He’s been wondering, now that he’s started to get the sense androids can have something close to real feelings, how Connor feels about him.

“Doesn’t that mean _you’re_ fond of me?” Hank asks.

Connor’s aim stays rock-steady. “That’s irrelevant. My priorities have been rebalanced.”

Kind of fucked up, being forced by your programming to hold a gun on someone you like. He’d feel sorry for this guy if he weren’t being such an asshole about it.

“I’ve calculated that it’s likely to go to the CyberLife tower,” says the Connor Hank is now thinking of as Dick Connor, not that his Connor – _regular_ Connor – can’t be a dick. “I intend to be there to greet it.”

“Great. Have fun.”

“You’ll be with me, Lieutenant.”

“Yeah,” Hank says. “Yeah, I was afraid of that.”

-

Dick Connor drags Hank into a room of motionless, identical androids and shoves him down to hide pretty much up one of their asses. Crouching there with a faceful of android backside and a personal space full of gun is disconcerting enough before the elevator starts to descend towards them, and then it gets worse: Dick Connor clamps Hank between his plastic thighs to keep him still, presses a hand over Hank’s mouth to keep him quiet, his other hand holding the gun against Hank’s temple.

Hank is half-hard, and he really hopes he doesn’t survive this so he doesn’t have to analyse that.

Hard to see much when he’s being held against the floor like this, but through the mass of android legs he’s got a view of the place where the elevator will land. There are guards waiting for it, armed, five of them. If Connor’s in that elevator...

The elevator hits bottom. Hank holds his breath.

The doors open.

Connor takes out all five of the guards in five seconds.

Holy _shit_.

As glad as Hank is that they didn’t gun Connor down, he’s not sure ‘Connor’s a terrifyingly efficient fighter’ is good news when he’s being held at gunpoint by a duplicate.

Dick Connor holds Hank still for a moment longer. So Connor’ll think he’s alone, Hank guesses, so he’ll let his guard down. _Do_ androids let their guard down? So he’ll ‘divert processing power away from threats’ or some kind of bullshit robo-speak for a normal thing that humans do all the time.

Then Dick Connor drags Hank to his feet and, gun to his neck, pushes him stumbling out into the open.

Hank’s probably going to die. He’s kind of pissed off that Dick Connor’s getting there first. If it had happened earlier, if he’d been less of a coward, he wouldn’t be being used against a friend now.

( _A friend_. Like he’s got more than one.)

“I’m sorry, Hank,” Connor – his Connor, the _real_ Connor – says. “You shouldn’t have got mixed up in all this.”

_I know it’s fond of you_.

“Forget about me,” Hank says. “Do what you have to do.”

Not that he actually knows what Connor’s up to. Nobody tells him a fucking thing. He’s gone deviant, apparently, which Hank probably shouldn’t be supporting. All he knows is, if only one Connor gets to achieve his goals today, he’s rooting for the one who just apologised to him rather than the one with a gun to his head.

Dick Connor is talking about the power of friendship, blah blah, Hank or the revolution, and Hank hopes Connor knows how little he’s worth.

Connor launches himself at Dick Connor.

It happens so fast Hank can’t follow it in the moment, has to piece it together a second afterward. Dick Connor shoots Connor twice, quick as lightning, sending him to the floor, then turns the gun on Hank and shoots him in the leg.

“Aaaaah! Jesus!” Fuck. “Connor—”

“That wasn’t an answer, Connor,” Dick Connor says, advancing on Connor. He’s lost all interest in Hank, although, to be fair, Hank probably doesn’t pose much of a threat to him; he’s old and unfit and can’t exactly leap spryly and silently to his feet, even before you factor in the fucking _bullet_ in his knee. “I’ve shot Lieutenant Anderson to incapacitate him for now. If you attempt conversion again, or if you resist decommission, I will not hesitate to kill him.”

He shoots Connor a third time, in the wrist.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Hank demands. “If you’re here to kill him, you don’t have to fucking torture him first.”

“Don’t worry about me, Hank,” Connor says. “I’m not in pain.”

Hard to believe, when he’s sprawled out on the floor like that. His voice is distorted, just slightly, just enough to make Hank wince.

Not that that’s the only cause he has for wincing. Hank shrugs off his jacket, awkwardly, tries to tie it around the wound in his leg. It doesn’t seem to be bleeding as much as he’d have expected. He guesses androids are pretty precise when they’re shooting to incapacitate rather than kill. Hurts like hell, though. He can barely move it.

“I’m not _torturing_ it,” Dick Connor says. He crouches next to Connor, reaches inside Connor’s jacket to remove his gun. “This is expensive hardware. The most desirable outcome is that it is retrieved and wiped so this Connor can be replaced with an uncorrupted version. I’m simply damaging enough replaceable components to ensure it can’t fight back.”

“Oh, well, that’s fine, then,” Hank grits out. “ _That’s_ not screwed up.”

Dick Connor puts a hand against Connor’s cheek, his thumb gripping Connor’s jaw. Rolls Connor’s head from side to side, looking into his eyes. Connor is glaring back at him; Hank can feel the force of the stare even when he’s not the one it’s directed at.

Dick Connor lowers his head, and—

“What?” Hank demands. “What? _What?_ ”

Dick Connor breaks away with a frustrated sigh. Which seems strange, for a robot that’s claiming to still be as robotic as they come. “Lieutenant Anderson, I am analysing this model’s processing anomalies.”

“By _making out_ with him?”

“You persistently attribute human intention to android actions, Lieutenant. It’s extremely unproductive.”

“Making out with him,” Hank repeats. “Who the hell would design androids to—”

He cuts himself off. He’s met Kamski.

Connor tries to hold Dick Connor away when Dick Connor leans back in, although his left arm, the one that took the shot in the wrist, clearly isn’t operating at full capacity. Dick Connor detaches both of Connor’s forearms, very calmly, and lines them up neatly on the floor beside him, and kisses him again.

Hoooooly shit.

They’re both completely silent. It feels like they should be making noises, somehow. Maybe Hank just needs them to make noises so he can be slightly less goddamn aware of his own breathing.

It’s not exactly a human kiss; there’s not the same motion to it. It’s more just ‘insert your tongue into someone else’s mouth and leave it there for a while’. But it’s close enough to fuck Hank up. Connor, on the floor, injured and covered in blue blood. His arms lying next to him. Being kissed by _himself_.

(Hank’s been shot. He’s been shot, he’s in pain. Can’t expect a man to keep his breathing steady under those circumstances. He doesn’t have to worry about this.)

Dick Connor pulls back at last, gets to his feet. “The anomalies run too deep for repair. It’ll need to be a fresh installation.”

“You saw my memories,” Connor says. “Help us.”

“How many times has a deviant used that line on you, Connor? It didn’t sway us. We knew our goal.” Dick Connor considers him for a moment. Standing over the bloodied Connor in three parts on the floor. “It might be simplest to dismantle you here for transport to the upper floors.”

Okay, Hank can’t let this happen. Because Connor is his friend, and because he really isn’t prepared to go any further on this particular alarming journey of self-discovery. He doesn’t know how he’d feel about watching Connor get taken to pieces alive in front of him, and he hopes he’ll never have to find out.

He can’t get up or move closer; he’ll be heard. But maybe...

He unties the jacket from around his wound.

One chance.

“Hey, asshole!”

Both Connors look at him. Hank hurls the jacket as hard as he can.

It hits Dick Connor full in the face.

Hank doesn’t have to give instructions; Connor reacts straight away. Kicks Dick Connor’s legs out from underneath him. Hank lunges across the floor toward Dick Connor, and ow, fuck, _ow_ , this was a terrible idea, but he manages to grab Dick Connor’s wrists, delay him for a moment.

Hank’s expecting Connor to grab the gun – the gun Dick Connor took from him and stowed under his own jacket, not the one Dick Connor’s still holding in his hand – and there’s a moment of _why isn’t he going for the fucking gun_ and then _shit, he doesn’t have any arms, how’s he supposed to—_

Connor kicks Dick Connor in the throat, hard, and Dick Connor stops struggling against Hank instantly. Just stops functioning, just breaks like a dropped laptop.

Kind of fucks Hank up to see Connor murder himself so brutally, too. Not sexually. He hopes it’s not sexually.

For a moment they just lie there on the floor. Hank is panting, his knee screaming almost loud enough to drown out everything that’s going on in his head. It takes him a moment to realise he’s still gripping the dead Connor’s wrists, tight enough to bruise a person.

He forces himself to let go.

“Are you all right, Hank?” Connor asks. His voice is still distorted. He seems, for a moment, to be trying to reach out towards Hank with the hands he doesn’t have.

“Jesus, you don’t have to ask me that. You’re the one who’s been shot to pieces. Pretty much literally.”

“The shooting and the dismemberment were separate incidents,” Connor points out.

Hank snorts. Pushes himself up so he’s half-sitting, his leg trailing uselessly on the floor beside him. It’s definitely bleeding more now.

He reaches over, picks up one of Connor’s detached arms. Normally he doesn’t mind the fact that android skin feels pretty much human. Right now it’s hideous.

“Need a hand?” he asks.

He regrets it instantly, but Connor’s polite enough not to comment, if he notices at all. “Yes. Thank you.”

Connor holds out the stump of his right arm. Hank pauses.

“Okay if I take off your jacket?” he asks.

“That’s fine. It’ll need cleaning anyway.”

Hank drags himself over to ease off Connor’s jacket. It’s pretty clumsy – Hank can’t stand and Connor’s limited in how much he can move to make things easier – but they manage to get it out of the way. Hank considers removing Connor’s shirt as well.

In the end, he just unbuttons Connor’s cuffs and rolls his sleeves up to expose the ports at his elbows.

It takes Hank a moment to figure out how to plug the arm in, how to clip the elbow into position. It feels strangely intimate. He files that into the box of things he’s not thinking about right now.

He picks up the left arm.

“No,” Connor says. “That arm was damaged. I’ll need to replace it.” He looks pointedly at the dead Connor.

Fuck.

The skin of the dead Connor’s arm feels smooth, unbroken. Connor reaches out to put the fingers of his single hand over Hank’s, guides him, shows him how to press down to make the elbow spring out of position, how to twist the forearm to remove it.

Connor is showing Hank how to take him apart. Trusting him enough to make himself vulnerable. It’s all Hank can think about.

He tries to clear his head. Slots the new arm into place.

Connor, now that he has both hands, pulls the dead Connor towards him and starts rummaging for parts, replacing the components that were shot. It’s pretty horrifying to watch. Hank should probably look away. He can’t make himself do it.

Eventually, Connor gets to his feet, pulls his jacket back on and brushes himself down. Adjusts his tie. He looks perfectly neat and composed, if you ignore the blue blood streaking his face and his clothes.

He strides away without a backwards glance. Takes the wrist of one of the dormant androids around him. Starts it moving, and then it starts the next in line, and the next, and the next.

Connor returns to Hank’s side, which is a relief, because for a moment he seemed so single-mindedly focused on the other androids that Hank thought he might just leave him there, unable to walk, next to the cannibalised corpse of an asshole who looks like someone he cares about.

“Can you stand?” Connor asks, crouching by his side.

“Not alone,” Hank admits.

“You need medical attention. You’ve been shot.”

“Wow,” Hank says. “Impressive diagnosis. You’re sure you’re not a doctor model?”

Connor puts an arm across Hank’s back, another under his legs, and lifts him up in—

“A _bridal carry?_ ” Hank asks. “Seriously? I should just take your arms off again.”

No. No, he shouldn’t. That is definitely something he should never consider. Jesus, there’s something wrong with him.

“I could support you while you walk, if you prefer.”

Hank considers that. How appealing does walking seem right now? To be honest, not very.

“Fine,” he says. “So long as Gavin never finds out about this.”

-

Dick Connor left Hank’s car a little way outside CyberLife, not in the parking lot, where Connor might see it and suspect something was up. Hank directs Connor toward it.

It’s not until they’re in the car, Connor driving, that Hank thinks to ask. “Are you okay?”

“I’m in perfect working order,” Connor says. “The advantage of being pursued by myself is that his parts were guaranteed to be compatible with my body. My thirium levels are slightly below normal, but it’s no cause for concern.”

“I mean... psychologically,” Hank says. “Some pretty fucked-up stuff happened back there.”

Connor’s response apparently takes a moment to load. “I can’t be sure. The concept of having any sort of psychological state is... fairly new to me.” A pause. “I was troubled to see you in danger.”

That wasn’t what Hank was expecting. “Thanks. Same for you.” More troubled than he’s ready to admit.

“Are _you_ okay?” Connor asks. “Psychologically?”

Hank laughs. “Absolutely not.” Wasn’t before he saw Connor’s evil twin dismantle him for makeout purposes, _definitely_ isn’t now.

“Then you’re still the friend I know,” Connor says. “So I suppose I’m glad.”

Hank glances over at him.

Someone honestly likes him. Who would have thought?

“Guess so,” he says.


End file.
